ďIf you canít explain it simply, you donít understand it well enough.Ē ~ Albert Einstein

Posted 23 March 2013 - 11:36 AM

Frank Merton, on 23 March 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

You have three "infinities" about God that people try to make fit together -- infinite love, infinite justice, infinite power. Now the love part says that God wants everyone to be saved.

The infinite justice parts says that evil must be punished. (I think this is the favorite part about all this to fundamentalists).

The infinite power part says God gets anything He wants, no exceptions. How can God get the "save everyone" part of the first God and at the same time the "punish evil" part of the second God? Well this third God gives the answer very simply -- God has arranged things so that everyone ultimately is saved, but must first be punished for the bad things they do.

The Roman Catholic purgatory solves this problem, if you take Hell as just a showplace not actually occupied, except by abstract ideas.

The Buddhist/Hindu concept of rebirth also solves it, as you work out your karma (the word for your accumulated sins and merits).

I agree that people struggle to fit those three "infinites" together, but the reason for the struggle lies with out self-centered view of things.

Yes, God is infinite love, which is why He paid the price for the infinite end result of your choices, but it is also why He will not force Himself on you for infinity if you don't want to spend it with Him. His infinite love does not mean He will be your floor mat and infinite-wish-granting genie.

God is infinite justice which is why, despite the fact that He would like for none to be lost, those who choose not to be saved will experience the infinite result of their own choices.

He does have infinite power and could simply force everyone into communion with Him, but His true, clean, pure infinite love prevents Him from forcing us into infinite slavery clothed as "infinite love."

"But then with me that horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" - Charles Darwin, in a letter to William Graham on July 3, 1881

well i haven't read even close to all of the comments that have been presented above so i apologize if i'm being redundant here in what i'm about to say. what i have to say regarding hell is simple. but lets start with your first contention: "Eternal Hell is excessive, and why would souls be predestined to go there?" regarding this question i must first ask, how do you know that we believe that some souls are predestined there? the answer would be to say that "some " Christians have openly admitted this. well those Christians are calvinists. i personally am not a calvinist. but to go on to the "problem of hell" i must ask, why is it excessive? do scientists not agree that time has a beginning. i see it logical to concede that we also have a personal agent who may intervene for us who transcends time. in the spiritual world, we are not chained down to even the concept of time. so why would a spirit complain? can they conceive the concept of time? certainly not. i believe souls choose to go to heaven or hell governed by the, not brain, but mind that their earthly bodies governed here on earth. if they chose to go there without the notion of time then why would a minute in hell be any different than an eternity in hell? it isn't different to them. surely they only understand the present. for how could a conscious being without the notion of time possibly understand the past or future? its like a baby with object permanence. whatever is current is all that there is. in their world, time doesn't have a limit. they are always in the present. the present is a form of time, yes but i'm not expecting you to conceive a world without the concept of time. is it possible for type of thing to be conscious in this type of world? i think so. and so we have it that their will to go to hell in the first place is as great as their will to stay once they're there. time itself doesn't play a role. they are always governed by the same mindset that their bodies on earth formed when time did play a reality. now, with literally no concept of time, you cannot change your mindset. its nearly inconceivable notice that the logic i'm using is the logic that people could use thousands of years ago as well. except for the bit that scientists now agree that time had a beginning; this shows that even scientists agree that there at least was a reality without even the concept of time...
Now going on to the unforgivable sin. may i ask "why" it seems contradictory and out of place? this is just one sin. its highly controversial as to whether this sin can be forgiven if you repent, despite Jesus verse saying that this sin won't be forgiven in this world or the next. but surely the fear that this notion invokes doesn't cause it to be out of place. can you imagine someone having a fatal stroke as they were urinating on a statue of our Lord and Savior and then going on to heaven to meet God and be in paradise in His up most kingdom? i can't. and i think that thats all that needs to be said on that matter at hand.
Now lets go on to contention #3. this contention or rather subjective observation regards why the old and new Testament seem to clash. well i believe that this is because the God in heaven was showing His authority in the old testament followed by the concluding love of His in the in the new testament. in the old Testament it was necessary for Him to set a solid foundation for the faith to go by. no sailer sets sail with a boat that has holes in it unless he wants this boat to quickly go down with the res threw out history. so for God to show exactly "why" we should fear Him as an omnipotent, omniscient Being, i believe this is a truly good thing for Him to show and should only be judged by us after we've gained the faithful mind toward Him and an accepting mind that we should have. for a person doesn't come to love their enemies by having a negative mindset does he? you must be knowledgable and accepting towards the Bible when you read this.
Further you ask why slavery is not condemned. well i believe that this isn't completely necessary. the Bible teachers for the owner to refrain from hurting his slaves. the Bible also teaches for both the slave and the owner to acknowledge God as the Master. in a time when slavery might of been fairly common in the land, we must set the grounds for it. the slavery was not taught to include the beating and verbal abuse that we think of when we think of slavery. when we think of slavery we most commonly think of the blacks and what they had to go threw. the Bible strongly condemns this type of slavery however. this, in contrast was the type of slavery that led an entire nation to truly hate their neighbor, and to abuse their neighbor and to think of themselves as better than thy neighbor on every level even though this "neighbor" has done nothing wrong. in contrast to the slavery that the Bible teaches, the Bible teachers not to abuse, to love everyone unconditionally, and to remember your fathers days as slaves in egypt whenever you welcome outsiders or anyone for that matter.
so please, take a chance on the Bible. start out with the new Testament, read the books from the beginning as you would with a book today, and i encourage you to look at the cup as half full rather than half empty. the Word of God wasn't meant to persuade even those who read it with an evil mind. those of whom simply read it only to find the faults and to continue hating God.

ďIf you canít explain it simply, you donít understand it well enough.Ē ~ Albert Einstein

Posted 23 March 2013 - 04:02 PM

Frank Merton, on 23 March 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:

You missed the point entirely. Do you want to try again?

Sure, why not

Frank Merton, on 23 March 2013 - 08:10 AM, said:

You have three "infinities" about God that people try to make fit together -- infinite love, infinite justice, infinite power. Now the love part says that God wants everyone to be saved.

... and provided a way that is freely available to all, but is forced on none.

Quote

The infinite justice parts says that evil must be punished. (I think this is the favorite part about all this to fundamentalists).

Not all fundamentalists.

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The infinite power part says God gets anything He wants, no exceptions. How can God get the "save everyone" part of the first God and at the same time the "punish evil" part of the second God? Well this third God gives the answer very simply -- God has arranged things so that everyone ultimately is saved, but must first be punished for the bad things they do.

I think the infinite power part means He can do as He wills, which means He can also choose to let each person choose and can choose to stand by their choices, so those who choose to reject salvation will not in the end find themselves forced to commune with Him eternally.

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The Roman Catholic purgatory solves this problem, if you take Hell as just a showplace not actually occupied, except by abstract ideas.

The Buddhist/Hindu concept of rebirth also solves it, as you work out your karma (the word for your accumulated sins and merits).

Neither of these fits with what we find at the end of Revelations.

"But then with me that horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" - Charles Darwin, in a letter to William Graham on July 3, 1881

I really don't care what you find in Revelations; I'm just pointing out what your teaching about God leads to. It leads to some sort of universal salvation -- maybe after many lives but that is where it leads. That you have a doctrine contridicting what you say about your God is your problem, and I would suspect will require many hard lives or maybe many eons in Purgation to cleanse yourself of. I suspect that if there is an unforgivable sin, it would be limiting the reach of God's love with your own desires to see others punished.

ďIf you canít explain it simply, you donít understand it well enough.Ē ~ Albert Einstein

Posted 23 March 2013 - 04:24 PM

Frank Merton, on 23 March 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

I really don't care what you find in Revelations; I'm just pointing out what your teaching about God leads to. It leads to some sort of universal salvation -- maybe after many lives but that is where it leads. That you have a doctrine contridicting what you say about your God is your problem, and I would suspect will require many hard lives or maybe many eons in Purgation to cleanse yourself of.

The problem is you did not actually point that out, you simply gave your opinion on what infinite love, justice, and power lead to. I was able to show that your points are not the only possible outcome from those teachings.

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I suspect that if there is an unforgivable sin, it would be limiting the reach of God's love with your own desires to see others punished.

There is a vast difference between wanting someone punished and pointing out that the outcome of someone's choices will lead to punishment.

Edited by IamsSon, 23 March 2013 - 04:26 PM.

"But then with me that horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" - Charles Darwin, in a letter to William Graham on July 3, 1881

ďIf you canít explain it simply, you donít understand it well enough.Ē ~ Albert Einstein

Posted 23 March 2013 - 04:33 PM

Frank Merton, on 23 March 2013 - 04:25 PM, said:

You showed no such thing; or at least you may be convinced yourself but you are utterly unconvincing as a logician.

I'm sorry you failed to understand.

"But then with me that horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" - Charles Darwin, in a letter to William Graham on July 3, 1881

The problem is you did not actually point that out, you simply gave your opinion on what infinite love, justice, and power lead to. I was able to show that your points are not the only possible outcome from those teachings.

There is a vast difference between wanting someone punished and pointing out that the outcome of someone's choices will lead to punishment.

I think it is a fair question brought up by Frank, how do you work towards tolerance/love/justice when you proselytize for being saved or else be punished?

How does this contribute in a universal way to an unconditional love/justice for mankind?

The way I see it is that the standard Christian Muslim teaching about Hell or some other form of eternal punishment flies in the face of the teaching that God is Love. They admit that God wants everyone to be saved, and then they find some way of asserting the mere humans can prevent God from getting what He wants. It really is blasphemous when you think about it carefully.

"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy" -- Shakespeare

Posted 23 March 2013 - 06:22 PM

I think I see what you're saying in your post #120 Frank, I think that would be true if the only way of knowing the future were through cause and effect, which to us humans is probably true, but since imo God is beyond cause and effect, being the uncaused cause, I think He is not limited by that. Anyway this is really beyond what I can understand so I don't think I'll try and explain or talk about it because I really don't understand it and maybe I only half understand what you're saying, although I think I see where you are coming from. Also I think what you are saying is based on a linear notion of time, that time flows seamlessly from the past into the present and then into the future (or the reverse depending on how you look at it), but I don't think it flows that way for God. He can see past, present, and future at the same time, I think. Anyway, this is something I really don't grasp myself although I heard a better explanation of it once, which unfortunately I can't reproduce here, so I guess I'll leave this subject alone.

The way I see it is that the standard Christian Muslim teaching about Hell or some other form of eternal punishment flies in the face of the teaching that God is Love. They admit that God wants everyone to be saved, and then they find some way of asserting the mere humans can prevent God from getting what He wants. It really is blasphemous when you think about it carefully.

I think you bring in a good point, one worth exploring.

For me, it is simply not logical to call one 'Omni' anything and then position that this same source cannot get what they want.

The way I see it is that the standard Christian Muslim teaching about Hell or some other form of eternal punishment flies in the face of the teaching that God is Love.

Where does Islam teach that "God is love?"

As I read the Koran, Allah loves some, and is said not to love others. (see, for example, 2: 190-220 or so). I am not saying that's better or worse than a Christian view, but it would seem that there is a clear acknowledgment in Islam that there are some people Allah doesn't love, in which case, there wouldn't seem to be a consistency problem if Allah punishes those whom he doesn't love.

I think it is a fair question brought up by Frank, how do you work towards tolerance/love/justice when you proselytize for being saved or else be punished?

How does this contribute in a universal way to an unconditional love/justice for mankind?

Mormons believe that very few souls will go to hell(relitive speaking). Only the angels(demons) that turned against god to start with and those ho turn their backs on him in this life. Which is why we do baptisms for they dead' giving those who didn't get the chance and most of the ones that did a choice in the after life.

I am a Mormon. If I don't use Mormons believe, those my beliefs only.
I do not go to church haven't for thirty years.
There are other Mormons on this site. So if I have misspoken about the beliefs. I welcome their input.
I am not perfect and never will be. I do strive to be true to myself. I do my best to stay true to the Mormon faith. Thanks for caring and if you don't peace be with you.

Mormons believe that very few souls will go to hell(relitive speaking). Only the angels(demons) that turned against god to start with and those ho turn their backs on him in this life. Which is why we do baptisms for they dead' giving those who didn't get the chance and most of the ones that did a choice in the after life.

Thank you for your input Daniel. I have heard that In the Mormon faith you can get your dead relatives out of spirit prison.